As much as I like to pretend to be a hard-ass, sarcastic, cynical little crab, movies can really do a number on my emotional system. For instance, Apollo 13 is so effective that whenever I feel the need for a good cry-out, I pop it in, knowing exactly when I can expect the cathartic tears to brim over.

(Of course, it's one of those things where it's not effective unless I watch the WHOLE movie. I can't just fast-forward to the scene where Tom Hanks' voice finally crackles through to Mission Control after over four minutes of silence and expect to feel the full impact of it all.)

It's no surprise that with the excessive amounts of cooking, cleaning, wrapping, and holiday stress that comes from missing family and friends, Christmas movies can really sock it to your emotional core. Give yourself a night off and huddle up with some classic homey movies, some comforting local take-out, and several boxes of Kleenexes.

A Christmas Story
Even though I have the whole thing on tape already, when TBS starts showing this on Christmas Eve for 24 hours straight, my television will be on the entire time. I never get tired of any little bit of it, but I especially love the snow scenes. Ever since I moved to California, the scenes of Ralphie waking up Christmas morning to a backyard coated in freshly fallen snow and the parents quietly closing out Christmas night with glasses of wine and another snowfall hit me hardest.

Christmas Story Take-Out Menu

Randy's Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes: In my Midwestern opinion, the best Bay Area version of this homey food can be found at any of the Chow outposts. However, Blue Plate's version is also pretty tasty (if a bit salty), and I've recently learned that a Fra'mani meatloaf can be found at Costco?! Heavenly.

Just make sure you eat your meatloaf and mashed potatoes exactly like Randy: face first.

Chow delivery available through Waiters on Wheels, take-out available from the Church Street location. Blue Plate offers take-out.

Roast Turkey: In order to avoid any possible disastrous interactions with ravenous neighborhood dogs, swap the stress of a home-roasted turkey for Zuni Cafe's celebrated chicken and bread salad. (Frankly, we just had Thanksgiving, so aren't we a bit turkey'd out?) Zuni doesn't do take-out, but if you do what we do, it's just as good.

Go in, order a complete meal. Halfway through the meal, ask for the chicken and bread salad. At the end of the meal, profess to be too full for the chicken and bread salad, have their always-accommodating staff wrap up your spoils for you to bring home to your couch and TV. (It's the upgraded version of the two-fer we used pull at Olive Garden when I was a poor college student. We'd gorge ourselves on bottomless breadsticks and salad and then bring our entrees home. Two meals for the price of one!)

Peking Duck: I suggest you bypass the drama of having the poor thing decapitated at the table, so call up Ton Kiang for their conveniently pre-hacked version resplendent with crispy, lacquered skin and accompanied by soft puffy buns, plum sauce, and scallion brushes.

Ton Kiang delivers to some neighborhoods, otherwise do take-out

White Christmas
Ah, singing, dancing, and schmaltz! This Christmas classic is full of Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, and my eternal favorite, Danny Kaye. Great songs, great gags, great dancing, and I challenge even the hardest-bittenest Grinch around not to sob when Vermont innkeeper General Waverley walks out to see his old troops standing at attention. (Criminy, I choked myself up there just by WRITING about it!)

Never in my life do I crave liverwurst sandwiches except when watching old movies that feature them (they play a role in White Christmas, Charade, and Spellbound), so for this movie menu, think about getting in a nice spread of deli sandwiches, some choice Vermont cheeses, and a cocktail or two.

White Christmas Take-Out Menu

Ham and Cheese on Rye, Liverwurst, and Turkey Sandwiches: Miller's East Coast Delicatessen on Polk and Clay is THE place for authentic deli treats. All the sandwiches Bing offered Rosemary, including the dream-inducing liverwurst, can be made fresh here and taken home to your television set.

Cabot Clothbound Cheddar: Created by Cabot but aged on spruce by Jasper Hill Farm, this cheddar is wonderfully sharp and rich. Look for it at Cowgirl Creamery's retail stores or the Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley.

Hot Buttered Cider-Rum
In the movie, Danny Kaye looks forward to having one of these before they get to their destination and discover Vermont is rather short of snow that year. This is a recipe my husband developed in Boston by piecing a few recipes together.

Makes: 1 cocktail

Ingredients:
1-2 oz dark rum
6 oz mulled cider
1 tsp unsalted butter
1 tsp brown sugar
Freshly grated nutmeg
Cinnamon stick, for garnish

Preparation:
Combine the rum and hot cider in a heatproof glass or mug. Stir in the sugar and float the butter on top. Grate the nutmeg over the top and garnish with a single cinnamon stick.

Waverly Place Echo
Not named for the general in the movie as far as I know, but fitting nonetheless, don't you think? This recipe comes from the December issue of Imbibe.

Makes: 1 cocktail

Ingredients:
1/4 oz Hangar One Mandarin Blossom Vodka
1/4 oz vodka
6 Chinese Five-Spice-marinated Mandarin orange segments
1 oz Meyer lemon juice
5 to 6 candied Meyer lemon peels
1/2 oz Chinese Five-Spice Syrup (recipe follows)
3 Kaffir lime leaves, cut into long chiffonade
3/4 oz seltzer
Ice cubes

Preparation:
Combine ingredients in a mixing glass. Stir, add ice, cover and shake a few times. Pour into a glass and serve.

To make the mandarin orange segments, simply peel and separate the segments of a mandarin, cover with Chinese Five-Spice syrup, and marinate for at least 15 minutes.

For candied Meyer lemon peel, add strips of zest from 1 Meyer lemon to 1/2 cup of boiling simple syrup, reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before using.

Chinese Five-Spice Syrup

Makes: 2 2/3 cups

Ingredients:
5 whole star anise
1 Tb fennel seed
1 3-inch stick cinnamon, broken up
1 tsp whole cloves
1 Tb Szechuan peppercorns
2-2/3 cup simple syrup (dissolve 2 2/3 cups granulated white sugar into 2 2/3 cups hot water and let cool)
2 tsp honey

Preparation:
Process all spices to a coarse powder in a spice or coffee grinder. Heat a stainless steel pot over medium heat and toast the spices. Once fragrant, add the simple syrup to the pan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and add the honey. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and strain through a fine-mesh strainer. Will keep up to one month in the refrigerator.

Last weekend, I wandered back into Omnivore Books on Food to pick up a copy of Margaret Visser’s The Rituals of Dinner, that store owner Celia Sacks was kind enough to order for me (without my even having to ask, thank you very much).

I knew Clark Wolf, author of American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses would be there, talking about his book with Soyoung Scanlan of Andante Dairy.

As an American who happens to love cheese, the timing of my store visit required little thought.

When I arrived a little late for the reading (owing to the fact that I had my face buried too deeply in another book, missed my stop, and had to walk an extra five blocks), the tiny book store was filled with people focused on the animated Mr. Wolf talking of his grandparents and the role they played in his culinary imprinting.

Chatty and extremely energetic in a way that I envy, but would find personally exhausting, Wolf read excepts from his book. For example, when explaining why the difference in price of cow v. goat v. sheep milk cheese:

…sheep act like, well, sheep. If there’s a storm a-comin' or one of the flock feels blue or there's a new horse in the corral or a new dog in the field, they may just freak out and decide not to give milk, or be too upset to move easily into the milking barn. And when all is well, they still give only about a liter a day per sheep.

After Wolf's presentation, I decided to buy a copy of the book, having liked what he said enough to want to read more about American Cheese. And, no, not that kind of American Cheese, though that is briefly but firmly discounted in the book. I then asked him to sign my Margaret Visser book, since she was not present.

I'm glad I bought the book. It is as personable and informal as Wolf is in person, which is a good thing. Though not encyclopedic in its scope, there is a lot of good information to be gleaned from its pages.

From such basic information as the definition of what constitutes cheese, the different categories of it, how each is made, and good looking recipes in which they might find good employ, to the short biographies of America’s leading cheese producers, it reads more like a “getting to know you” book-- as though, through reading, you have casually picked the brain of an entertaining cheesemonger, which is essentially how Clark Wolf began to gain his 30-plus years of cheese-related knowledge in the first place.

But what , if anything, defines a cheese as "American?" Is there some unifying factor? Some unique coagulate or binding force? Not exactly. When asking, for example, a Southern cheese maker in what ways her colleagues were regionally unifiable and identifiable, he received this response: "Absolutely no way at all. We’re each completely different." And that was just the Southern contingent. If one starts to think about California cheese makers, one’s head might explode trying to come up with an answer.

Perhaps this lack of cohesion is what makes American Cheese makers, well, uniquely American. Or perhaps not. I look to the French, as so many cheese makers have done in the past, to put things into perspective. I will leave you with the unmistakably French, shoulder-shrugging cynicism of Charles de Gaulle:

One can't impose unity out of the blue on a country that has 265 different kinds of cheese.

In addition to being holiday season, this is baking season. While cookies are found at parties and traded with friends, they also are all over the internet. I'm not talking about the type of files that are downloaded to your computer, but honest-to-goodness, hot from the oven cookies. This year in addition to finding cookie recipes online, you can surf for cookies, subscribe to various cookie emails and even enter your cookies in a contest. Here is a guide to some of the tastiest online cookie sites.

Butter Is Best has a daily butter newsletter that includes tips and recipes from pastry chef Gale Gand. The site also offers some savory twists on classic cookies such as Salted Ginger Crisps and Rosemary Blue Cheese Ice Box Cookies.

Cooking Light offers Cookie Basics and a related feature how to send cookies in the mail. Their suggestion for a "made to mail" cookie? Crunchy Sesame Cookies.

Epicurious invites you to check out 25 days of Christmas cookies in a slide show. Pistachio and Cherry Mexican Wedding Cakes and Coconut Orange Snowballs are nice updates to classic cookies.

Eating Well has a healthy cookie collection of cookie contest winners. While no-bake Angel Delights was the winning recipe, chocolatey Lava Rocks and Yummy Molasses Crinkles sound pretty good to me.

Martha Stewart the queen of all things domestic and delicious has a month of cookies on her site. Check in daily for new photos and recipes.

FoodNetwork offers 12 days of cookies, sign up to receive cookie emails, check out the cookie recipes online or watch cookie videos.

An online feature only, Gourmet magazine has organized their favorite cookies by decade, with a favorite cookie each year, starting with the 1940's. Find an oldie but a goodie or simply marvel at how tastes have changed.

Between now and the end of the year submit a photo of your cookies online at AllRecipes in one of four categories--cut-outs, drop cookies, cookie bars and spritz and win a Samsung Electric Range or a DVD camera. The best looking photos from each four category will be notified January 6th and advance to the final round.

Finally for those of you who want hard copy, check out The Field Guide to Cookies by local pastry chef and Dessert First blogger Anita Chu. Her cookies are delicious! Just check out the photo of those peanut butter sandwich cookies...

Every family has its own way of celebrating the winter holidays. But what happens when two different cultures converge through marriage? Although my husband and I both grew up celebrating Christmas, this is exactly what happened to us 15 years ago when we started dating.

It probably won't surprise anyone to hear that my childhood Christmas traditions were all centered around Italian food. Although we lived 3,000 miles from my mother's family when I was growing up, she brought her Italian and New York heritage to San Diego. Sweet ricotta cakes infused with citrus, struffula (small fried egg dough cakes covered in honey and candies), and sandies (pecan shortbreads dusted with powdered sugar) graced our dessert table. Meanwhile, Christmas Eve was a seafood extravaganza -- as it is for most Italian Catholics -- and we dedicated ourselves to frying clams, shrimp, octopus, and calamari; stuffing whole baby squids and gently cooking them in a savory marinara sauce; baking freshly made pizzas; and frying ricotta and sausage calzones in vats of hot olive oil. The preparations all started a few days before Christmas Eve, when my mom would start soaking salted cod so she could make Baccalà-- a chilled cod salad with vinegar peppers, celery and other delights. We had enough food, and wine, for at least 20 people.

On Christmas morning, we would excitedly open our presents, and then just as enthusiastically eat reheated pizza and calzones for breakfast along with a meatball or two from my mother's simmering gravy. After a few hours on the stove, the gravy would be ready and we would sit down for our holiday meal which included -- along with the gravy -- either lasagna or baked ziti, prosciutto pie (ricotta and prosciutto baked into a homemade olive oil dough crust), chicken cacciatore, a mashed potato soufflé, eggplant parmesan, and a few other tidbits.

Those big Italian Christmas meals make up some of my most vivid holiday memories. I loved them and always thought I would one day mimic my mother’s Neopolitan feasts, down to the smallest details, when I was old enough to host my own Christmas dinners. But something unexpected threw a wrench into the works of this plan: I married someone with completely different holiday traditions than my own.

After marrying a Midwestern boy who ate ham on Christmas Eve and rib roast on Christmas Day, my eyes were opened to the fact that there were other ways to make a Christmas dinner. Sure, Anglo-American culture, depicted in movies and books, always showed people eating turkeys and roasts for Christmas dinner. Old Scrooge gives the Cratchits a turkey as big as Tiny Tim at the end of A Christmas Carol and even the Grinch gets to carve the roast beast. Yet although I was familiar with these stories, I had never had that type of Christmas meal: what appeared to be the norm in most American households seemed more like an oddity to me.

My husband and I spent our first few years together enjoying holidays at our parents' houses, partaking in an Italian Christmas one year and then switching off to an Anglo one the next. I usually made dessert at my in-laws' house, but left the job of cooking the roast beast up to my mother-in-law. But now that we have young children, we find ourselves hosting and cooking the holiday meals at our own house more often than not. So in an attempt to have our children grow up experiencing both their Italian and Midwestern heritages, we celebrate each of our family's Christmas traditions. The holiday starts with a very Italian Christmas Eve, followed the next day by a standing rib roast or Beef Wellington with all the trimmings, including a nice steamed pudding or trifle for dessert.

One thing that has surprised me through all this is how much I have come to really love our Anglo Christmas dinners. Persimmon pudding has even become one of my favorite holiday desserts. Sure, the foods my mother made on Christmas are part of my cultural identity and embody flavors and tastes that I will always love and want to pass on to my own children, but I now simply save that menu for another occasion, usually Easter. I sometimes wonder what my daughters will do when it's their turn to host their own Christmas events. In the meantime, I'm trying to raise them with some shared traditions from both parents, along with some that are unique to our own family as well.

Sometimes, when it's cold outside and you're bundled in bed incapable of cooking and yet you need some food that feels and tastes homemade, but your mom is maybe 1,500 hundred miles away, it's time for the smart shortcuts.

Sure, the first can of chicken and stars brings back fond memories, but by the tenth or twelfth, even after heretical adulterization with dandelion greens or hot sauce, that bowl of comfort starts tasting rather thin. You've finished that delicious chili dropped off by a friend and your loved one is in meetings all day. Driving a stick shift up hills is most definitely beyond your abilities, assuming you even get past peeling off your flannel nightgown and navigating the laces on your shoes.

That's when you call for an order of pai gwat, those savory little tidbits of pork spareribs that dim sum houses and any decent, neighborhood Cantonese restaurant list on their menus. Then you dig around in your vegetable bin for any possible hint of vegetables, preferably a not too wilted head of mustard greens or a bunch of watercress or even, in desperate times, a well-rinsed bag of baby spinach already past its prime.

You still have to open a can: chicken broth. Then all you need is a spoon to stir it all together and bring the savory tidbits of goodness to your lips.

Pork Sparerib and Mustard Green Soup

If you're feeling healthy and motivated, you can track down a butcher who will cut spareribs into little one-inch pieces. Simmer them for 40 minutes in water flavored with a bit of dry sherry, salt, pepper and ginger to make your own soup base. Or you can just pick up the phone.

Ingredients:
1 order of take-out pai gwat (usually about 1 pound)
1 can good-quality chicken stock (about 1 1/2 cups)
Extra ginger, as much as you like, cut into slivers (optional)
Black pepper
A big pile of dark greens, such as mustard, turnip, watercress, spinach or escarole

Preparation:
Dump the pai gwat directly from its take-out box into a pot. Stir in the chicken stock, ginger, black pepper and a cup of water. Bring just to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, wash the greens and tear them into large pieces that will fit onto your spoon. Add them to the pork and stock, and cook to desired tenderness. (The worse I'm feeling, the longer I tend to cook the greens, for that lovely silky texture and for the more rounded, mellow flavor that develops.)

Serve over rice in a big bowl.

I'm going to try not to sound like a grandma-in-a-rocking-chair here, but indulge me for a moment: I joined the food blog community in its infancy. When I started my blog over five years ago, there were just a handful of us around. I don't think that any of us imagined what this blog community was going to become, or predicted the explosion of food bloggers worldwide.

So, what's bringing on all this nostalgia? It's the announcement of the 5th Annual Menu for Hope -- a worldwide fundraising effort by food bloggers for a designated charity. This is an event that really highlights the magnitude of the food blogger community and its impact around the world.

This year the charity of choice is the United Nations World Food Programme, with the funds specifically going to an important school lunch program in Lesotho.

Menu for Hope is hosted by Pim of Chez Pim, and is the annual major fundraising event for food bloggers. Last year, the event raised over $90,000 for the Lesotho program.

The event is a raffle, with each ticket costing $10. Everyone can participate. There are dozens of prizes this year, broken into areas of the world:

West Coast
Wine
East Coast
Canada
Asia

Each year, the prizes get more exciting and more innovative. There are many ways to strategize your prize choices -- some choose to find the prizes with a low number of bids to increase their chances of winning. At first glance, here is my wish list for prizes I'd love to win:

Dinner for 6 at Contigo, with sommelier service by Alder of Vinography. (In Praise of Sardines, prize code UW14). Brett Emerson of In Praise of Sardines is opening his restaurant in Noe Valley within weeks. This prize will allow you and five friends to have dinner at this Catalan-inspired restaurant.

Knife of your Choice (Steamy Kitchen, prize code UE01). Win a chef's knif of your choice from New West Knifeworks.

Two boxes of Macarons from Petites Bouchees (Veronica's Test Kitchen, prize code UE04). I am a sucker for well-made macarons, and the prize of 48 macarons is too tempting to pass up.

Bo Ssam dinner for 8 at Ssam Bar (Momofuku - UE15). There are a couple of prizes that I would be willing to travel for, and if I won this dinner from Momofuku, I would be on a plane to New York City in a split second.

Lowel Ego Two Light Set (Kalyn's Kitchen - UW10). This is a great prize for all the food photographers out there. I'd love to have this prize for my indoor food photography.

Dinner with Eric Asimov (The Pour / NY Times - WB02). I get sweaty palms even imagining having dinner with Eric Asimov, but what a fun dinner it would be!

A case of small production wines from Raymond. (Raymond Vineyards - WB22). This is a carefully selected case of wine from Raymond Vineyards.

There are dozens more prizes to choose from, so please take a look for yourself and decide what to bid on! You can find out more details about Menu for Hope on Pim's site.

To donate to Menu for Hope:
1) Choose your prizes and note the prize codes.
2) Go the the First Giving site for Menu for Hope
3) Specify which prize you'd like in the "Personal Message" section according to the rules on the First Giving site.
4) If your company matches charity donations, check the appropriate box.
5) Check the box allowing the page owner to see your email address for the purposes of contacting the winners.
6) Check back on Chez Pim on January 12 to see who won!

Let's face it -- Christmas is not about the joy of giving and receiving. It's not about the much-disputed birth of Christ, or miracles, or even the tarting up of pagan trees while singing Songs of Cheeses.

It's about whether you get your chocolate on odds or evens this year. It's about whether your older sister will force you to give her your day's haul of chocolate. That's right my friends, this month is ALL about Advent calendar chocolate.

(Sidebar: remember non-chocolate Advent calendars where the only reward for us kids was first, the sheer pleasure of finding the tiny digits in an almost Where's Waldo of numbers, and second, the excitement of opening the perforated hatch to expose what lay beneath? Sigh. Simpler times. Simpler pleasures.)

Okay, so since we're currently over, um, two weeks? Into Advent, this post is a skosh late, BUT forewarned is forearmed for next year.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Advent calendar chocolate tastes no better than the cardboard doors they hide behind. To wit: last year, the chocolate in our Andronico's-purchased Advent calendar was so horrific that by Christmas Eve, I had been handing over my "turns" to my husband for at least a week.

Finally, my ire over the paucity of good chocolate sent me scurrying to the Wide, Wide World of Web. If we live in an era of artisanal cheese, specialized olive oil, rare vinegar, and DIY flour, quality Advent calendar chocolate MUST exist, right?

Eh. Sort of.

After scouring the websites of my favorites -- Burdick's, Scharffenberger, Reciutti, and Cocoa Bella -- and coming up dry, I widened the search.

I hit pay dirt when I turned up a link to Godiva's Advent calendar, but of course it was sold out, so I filed the information away in my brain, and the link in my bookmarks, and I found it again this year. (Okay, so it's sold out again, it's not like you were going to buy it now, right?)

At British Delights, I also discovered a Cadbury Dairy Milk Advent calendar. Well, of COURSE the same ingenious Brits who have the foresight to install refrigerated Cadbury chocolate dispensers in the Underground would stuff their Advent calendars with Cadbury chocolate!

While Godiva and Cadbury are clearly a flavor step above the usual Advent calendar chocolate, I still think there's room for improvement.

The Godiva Advent calendar is very sophisticated, very adult, in that there are no Christmas-themed pictures of angels, presents, teddy bears, or Santa Clauses (Clausi?) on or behind the little doors. The calendar is illustrated by a big, stylized tree made up of green ornaments on a red background; white snowflakes and gold strings of beads provide additional decoration.

Basically, it's the chocolate Advent calendar equivalent of those special jacket covers that some adults buy to hide the fact they're reading Harry Potter.

The Godiva chocolate is...fine. You get thick green, red, and blue foil-wrapped coins of milk, dark, or white chocolate with a bas-relief of Lady Godiva molded on them. Not Santa Claus or Jesus or a Wise Man, just a naked lady on a horse. Very adult.

The Cadbury Dairy Milk Advent calendar is clearly aimed at kids or the young at heart. The doors have little pictures on and behind them, and the chocolates themselves are molded into Christmassy shapes that can only be deciphered if you squint at them after several glasses of ruby port. Again, the chocolate here is just middling, but "middling" is a giant step above plastic cardboard, so I'm not really complaining.

In the next few years, I want to see Burdick's, Scharffenberger, Reciutti, Cocoa Bella, or even Dove step it up, Advent calendar-wise.

What, you think they won't sell? Aside from the adults who would kill to find orange pekoe truffles or fleur de sel caramels behind the little doors, are you telling me that the parents with kids who ask, "Is the beef local?" wouldn't brag about those same kids lisping, "Is the chocolate artisanal?"

What are you doing this coming Thursday? Nothing? In that case, make reservations for dinner out. In one fell swoop you can help both local restaurants and the hungry in our own community.

A maverick is someone who exhibits great independence in thought and action. True to the name, local Maverick restaurateur Scott Youkilis and wine director Michael Pierce created Dine Out Against Hunger, and organized some of the city's top venues to donate up to 10% of Thursday December 18th dinner sales to the San Francisco Food Bank, which supplies over 600 food programs throughout the city.

Maverick will also take 10% off the tab for any customers making an additional donation to the Food Bank. Perhaps you'd like to make the donation in the name of a friend or a family member? Cross another person off your holiday gift list!

What: Dine Out Against Hunger

When: Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Where: Dinners to take place at the following restaurants: Participating restaurants are: Maverick, A16, Americano, Caffe Sociale, Delfina, Foreign Cinema, Incanto, Kuleto's, Magnolia, Range, Serpentine, Slow Club, and SPQR.

How: Make reservations.

Why: If you're wondering whether hunger is a problem in our fair city, it's estimated that 150,000 San Franciscans are at risk of going hungry this holiday season. For every $1 raised during this effort, the Food Bank can distribute $9 worth of food into the community, thanks to its relationships with retailers, growers and distributors. San Francisco Food Bank’s goal is to distribute 66,000 holiday meals this season. Help make the holidays a little brighter for everyone.

If you haven't eaten at A16 in a while, the A16 cookbook should whet your appetite. Here is a scrumptious recipe from A16 Food + Wine. The recommended wine to pair with this seasonal salad is Asprinio di Aversa from Campania.

Roasted Beet Salad with Fennel, Black Olives, and Pecorino

Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients:

2 bunches medium-sized red beets (about 8 total)
Kosher salt
1⁄3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for
roasting the beets
1 1⁄2 fennel bulbs
2⁄3 cup black olives, pitted
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice,
or as needed
Block of aged pecorino for shaving

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Trim off the greens and the “tail” from each beet. (You can reserve the greens if they are in good condition and use them in the braised greens recipes on pages 230 and 232.) Place the beets in a roasting pan in which they fit snugly, and season with about 1 tablespoon salt and a drizzle of olive oil. Cover the pan and roast for 1 hour, or until the beets are tender when pierced with a wooden skewer or the tip of a paring knife. Remove the beets from the oven, let them cool just until they can be handled, and then rub off the skins with your fingers or peel them with a paring knife. Slice the beets into 1⁄3-inch-wide wedges. Cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, if still intact, cut off the stalks and feathery tops (reserve for another use) from the fennel bulbs. Cut the bulbs in half lengthwise, then cut away the core. Cut the halves lengthwise into 1⁄4-inch-thick slices. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fennel slices and blanch for about 2 minutes, or until they lose their raw bite. Drain, shock in ice water to halt the cooking, drain again, and set aside.

To make the vinaigrette, pulse the olives in a food processor until they form a chunky paste. Drizzle in the 1⁄4 cup olive oil and the vinegar and pulse briefly to combine. Taste for seasoning and add more vinegar if needed.

In a bowl, toss together the fennel and the 1⁄4 cup olive oil, coating the fennel evenly. Mix in the lemon juice and a pinch of salt, taste for seasoning, and adjust with more salt and⁄or lemon juice if needed. In a separate bowl, combine the beets and olive vinaigrette and toss until the beets are thoroughly coated with the vinaigrette.

To serve, place the beets in a salad bowl or on a platter and top with the fennel. Using a vegetable peeler, shave curls of pecorino over the salad. Serve immediately.

Recipe reprinted from A16 Food + Wine, copyright ©2008 by D.O.C. Restaurant Group, LLC, courtesy of Tenspeed Press.

About a month ago, I wrote about Fuyu persimmons, which are one of my favorite fall fruits. This week, I'd like to extol the virtues of the Hachiya persimmon. Hachiyas are the misunderstood fruit of winter: although they are sweet and wonderful when baked into cakes and puddings, many people are afraid to eat them because they are truly awful when immature. A firm Hachiya is extraordinarily astringent and inedible. I admit that taking a bite out of one is sort of like eating an unripe bitter walnut while suddenly having all the moisture sucked out of your cheeks and tongue. But there's a very simple way to avoid this: don't eat Hachiyas until they're ripe.

Like Fuyus, Hachiyas range in color from light orange to a reddish sunset. They are easy to distinguish from Fuyus, however, because while the Fuyu looks like an orange tomato, the Hachiya is shaped like a large acorn. Hachiyas are lovely in both appearance and taste, just not at the same time. While they are outwardly attractive when unripe, they only become gastronomically appealing once the skin mottles and starts to shrivel over the soft ripened fruit. Yet while Hachiyas may not be pretty when they’re ready to be eaten, they are luscious when added to cakes and steamed puddings.

Before you eat a Hachiya, make sure it is soft and squishy as you need to wait for the fruit’s tannins to break down before the pulp loses its astringency and takes on a sweet and sugary flavor. The mature fruit has a jellylike texture, which may make them seem unappealing as a raw snack, but shouldn’t stop you from cooking with them. To coax Hachiyas into ripening, just set them out on your counter or window sill for a few days to over a week, depending on how firm they are. If you’re in a hurry, you can freeze a partially ripe Hachiya for at least 24 hours and then defrost it, which helps soften and sweeten the fruit. I tried this once and it worked okay, although the taste wasn’t as sweet as a naturally-ripened persimmon.

You can buy Hachiyas at the farmer’s market or grocery store during the fall and early winter, but as they grow in abundance in the Bay Area, you may be able to get them for free if you know someone with a tree. In my neighborhood, there are at least ten trees within a four-block radius of my house. For years, most of the fruit from these trees was left to rot each December on the ground. I always wanted to stop and ask the people who lived in these houses if I could have a few, but usually I had two toddling twins running ahead of me and so always put it off for another day. But this all changed a few years back when my neighbor George started knocking on doors and asking people if he could collect their fallen fruit. George is in his late 70s, has a big smile for everyone, and loves to chat. How could anyone refuse him? Luckily George also knows that I love persimmons (from all that chatting we’ve done over the years), so each December he now gives me persimmons by the bagful, and I, in turn, give him persimmon cake.

I came up with my Hachiya persimmon cake recipe as a way to use up all those lovely persimmons George leaves on my doorstep. If you’d like to try the sweet, nuanced flavor of Hachiya persimmons, this might be a good recipe to try because it’s fast and easy. Although the recipe calls for some fresh orange juice and brandy or cognac -- all of which nicely accent the persimmons’ sweet flavor -- you can leave them out if you don’t have them on hand. Just be sure to add in a teaspoon of vanilla if you leave out the orange juice.

So here’s to the Hachiya persimmon: a fruit that is lovely both inside and out.

Persimmon Cake with a Citrus Glaze

Makes: One 9 x 13-inch cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 1/4 cups Hachiya persimmon pulp
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp brandy or cognac
3/4 cup raisins or currants
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp orange juice
2 tsp lemon juice

Preparation:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Remove skin from persimmons and seed the fruit. Blend the pulp in a food processor or blender and set aside.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a large bowl and set aside.
4. Blend the sugar into the butter until creamy.
5. Add the eggs, orange juice and cognac to the butter mixture and beat until fully incorporated.
6. Blend in the persimmon puree.
7. Add the flour to the butter and persimmon mixture.
8. Add the raisins and nuts and mix until just barely incorporated. Don’t overmix, however, as this will make your cake rubbery.
9. Grease a 9x13 pan and then spread the batter inside.
10. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
11. To make the icing, mix the powdered sugar, orange juice and lemon juice in a bowl until you have a thick syrupy consistency. Add more lemon or orange juice if you need to thin it a bit more.
12. Spread the icing on top of the warm cake.
13. Cool and serve.

It's the Holiday Season, if you haven't noticed. Sappy music is piped into our ears if we dare venture pretty much anywhere outside. Macy's is back to putting live kittens in their store windows. People are stressed out at the thought of having to entertain, buy presents, and spend their dwindling piles of money.

And I'm busy-- I've got lots of parties to go to. Because I'm that popular.

I have decided that this year, in light of my own evaporating bankroll, I shall indulge in the spirit of giving by sharing with my friends and loved ones items I have made with my own little hands. Or not so little-- I have more than an octave reach, in piano terms. Not that I play the piano.

This year, I am making Bourbon Balls. No jokes, please. They contain all the vitamins and minerals necessary to get me through the Season: sugar, chocolate, and alcohol. They are relatively easy to make, but look as though I've slaved away at them. And they're good. Chocolaty, not too sweet, slightly salty, and just a little boozy.

The way I see it, the chocolate boosts not only one's endorphins, thus enhancing one's Holiday mood, it helps out the immune system, too. Alcohol, of course, lowers one's inhibitions, which helps at just about any party I've ever been to. This leads me to the conclusion that, if there is some hot stranger in a Christmas sweater you've been eyeing from across the room, I might prescribe several Bourbon Balls before making your move. With the resultant boost in mood, courage, and disease immunity, you'll be nicely set up for an approach. If he or she simply stares blankly and then proceeds to sneeze on you, you're well protected. If this is the case, return to the plate of Bourbon Balls and repeat with your #2 choice of mate.

Bourbon Balls

The basic recipe seems to be comprised of crushed cookies, nuts, bourbon, and cocoa powder. None of the recipes I perused included salt, which I found alarming. So I added some. I would advise against going overboard with the Bourbon. You want the balls to taste of Bourbon, but not reek of it. Again, no jokes, please.

Makes about 25

Ingredients:

For the filling:

28 to 30 vanilla wafers, finely crushed (about 1 cup)

1 cup toasted, shelled pecans, finely chopped

3 tablespoons good, unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons confectioner's sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

3 tablespoons bourbon. Might as well make it a good one.

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For making them presentable:

25 whole pecans. On the small side. Either toasted or candied. I chose candied because, well, I'm making candy.

About 12 oz. of good bittersweet chocolate

Preparation:

1. Mix crushed wafers, pecans, sugar, cocoa, and salt together in a medium bowl. Combine bourbon and corn syrup in a separate, smaller bowl, add to the wafer mixture and stir well until combined. With a teaspoon measure, scoop a small bit and roll into a ball approximately the size of a walnut in its shell. Transfer onto a sheet pan lined with paper towels. Repeat, of course until done.

I say paper towels because, these balls are going to weep, which is not entirely surprising, given the faced that they have been so mercilessly plied with booze. It happens and we must be prepared.

2. In a double boiler or glass bowl which fits snugly over a saucepan with a little water in it, melt the chocolate. Gently place the balls, one by one, into the chocolate, turning them around with a fork (do not impale them. I use a small fork to allow excess chocolate to drip off the balls with ease.). Lift the ball out of the melted chocolate, and shake gingerly to remove excess chocolate. Place on a sheet pan lined with waxed or parchment paper. Repeat until all balls have been dipped. And you can stop your giggling now, thank you very much. While the chocolate is still wet, top each ball with a candied nut. Let them cool.

You may keep these refrigerated for up to one week, but I don't think they'll be around that long. Really.